Meet Adrian Praetzellis, Audiobook Narrator for LibriVox.org
Most of you are probably aware of LibriVox. For those who aren't, it's a FREE service offering audiobooks utilizing books and other text documents in the public domain. Simply download the audiobook either as a podcast (the book in three installments per week) or browse/search the catalog find what you want to listen to and then download as a Zip file. This page has more details and yes, you can listen to LibriVox content with your iPod,iPhone,iTouch, and in the near future, your iPad.
The article is about Sonoma State University anthropology professor Adrian Praetzellis, who is also a "narrator" of the books (more than 75 hours so far) LibriVox offers as audiobooks.
His solitary and unpaid exercise in story-telling has reached close to half a million listeners through LibriVox, a free and communally run library of digital audio recordings. The operation was started four years ago by young Montreal techie Hugh McGuire, with the altruistic mission of making as many texts as possible available to a limitless number of people around the world in audio format with no filters, no judgments and no fees. It not only is nonprofit {they're having a fundraising drive at the present time], but has no paid administration.
The only real restriction is that all the texts must be non-copyrighted and in the public domain. In the U.S. that would include anything published before 1923.
Some 3,500 people like Praetzellis have posted recordings — 3,175 books and 65,000 other audio texts ranging from poetry and plays to government documents and important letters and speeches on the site, LibriVox.org.
[Snip]
What the Jewish Praetzellis has mastered well is Yiddish. Disturbed by the anti-Semitism he found in a lot of late 19th and early 20th century literature, including “The 39 Steps,” he became inspired to revive long forgotten Yiddish literature by writers like Israel Zangwill and Amy Levy.
[Snip]
Recording for LibriVox is, he says, a literal labor of love. Once a recording is made and uploaded, it’s set free for anyone to use in any way they choose, including repackaging it for commercial purposes, like Praetzellis’ popular “Treasure Island.” Recordings are routinely sold on eBay. According to McGuire, the mission of LibriVox is to liberate orphaned literature, not monetize it.
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